Tag Archives: Google

If you’ve been thinking about getting a Nexus 4, then Google just made your decision easier. They’ve generously slashed $100 from the price of their flagship smartphone, bringing the price of the Nexus 4 down to $199 for the 8GB version and down to $249 for the 16GB version. Talk about a crazy deal!

Few smartphone companies make the moves that Google does, so when they do, you’ve got to pay attention so you don’t miss out. The Nexus 4 has specs that still hold up a year after its release, with its 4.7-inch 1280 x 768 resolution display, 1.5 GHz quad-core processor, and 2GB of RAM.

Not to be biased or anything, but I’ve been using this phone for the last four months and it hasn’t left me wanting for anything, to be honest. The Nexus 4 comes with features that offer the best of both worlds: it’s great for gaming, streaming videos, and listening to music, so it’s got leisure and entertainment covered.

For chronic workaholics–well, there’s a bevy of office and productivity apps that you can choose from in the Google Play store. Since it runs on Android, you can also have a custom interface made for enterprise-type applications.

Perhaps the best part about the Nexus 4 is the fact that it’s an unlocked device, so you can use it with the carrier of your choice. Given the price, the specs, and the fact that it’s unlocked, you won’t get a better deal on any phone anywhere else. You can find out more about the device on Google’s site.

Google has announced the much-awaited and newer version of the Nexus 7. I was gifted the older Nexus 7 last Christmas, along with some tablet accessories and it has lived up to every expectation so far. It has its limitations and occasional hick-ups, given that it’s a budget tablet and all, but it definitely ranks high up in my books and is almost up to par with Apple and Samsung’s tablets.

The new Nexus 7 received a bunch of upgrades, such as a rear-facing camera which its predecessor doesn’t have. It will come equipped with an Adreno 320 GPU and a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor with 2GB of RAM.

You gotta smell it to believe it. Google is well aware of this fact, which is why they launched their newest service: Google Nose. It is exactly what its name implies. Basically, you’ll have the same efficiency of Google web search, only you’re provided with the option of smelling your search results instead.

Search for ‘lemon’, and you’ll get a whiff of something citrusy and fresh. Google ‘new car’ and you’ll be treated to the scent of a brand new car of your preferred brand.

Google Glass isn’t even really available to consumers yet (unless you’re a developer with a great idea and $1,500 burning a hole in your pocket), but it hasn’t stopped creative minds with fertile imaginations to conjure up potential uses. In the hilarious video below, we see how the futuristic glasses could help you out during a date. From allowing you to Google them on the fly to give you a leg up on their likes and dislikes, to providing you with entertainment as they drift off into boring talk of politics, the glasses are there to save the day.

Granted the imagined uses are very far off from how the device actually works, but the fact that videos like this are cropping up now show that if Google Glass takes off, there’s going to be an adjustment period where people have to figure out just how to act and react to their presence in civilized society. Already some bars are talking about banning them, while some lawmakers in Wrest Virginia are proposing legislation prohibiting their use while driving. There’s a long road ahead for the search giant’s latest project, and it’s going to be interesting to see if this turns into a Gmail-like success, or a Google Wave-like failure.

Conan O’Brien is back with more of his hilarious antics, and this time, he’s got Google Glass in his sights. In case you haven’t heard of it yet (although it’s highly probably that you already have, considering how much media attention it’s gotten lately), Google Glass is a revolutionary piece of eyewear that integrates camera, maps, translator, messenger, and Siri-like functionalities into a compact and wearable accessory. Just think of it as the glasses you’ve always wanted to have, but, well, never did.

Because he’s bitter that he wasn’t chosen to be an Explorer (that’s Google-speak for beta tester), he’s come up with a parody product called Google Ass that you’re supposed to strap to your butt. Nah, I’m just kidding… Conan came up with this fake product because it’s funny, and after watching his short clip featuring his faux revolutionary ass-wear, you’ll be nodding in agreement.

It was just last week that we were reporting on the return of Google Maps to the Apple App Store. In the article, we mentioned that a lot of people were still living with iOS 5 because of the absence of Google’s mapping solution on iOS 6. But few people had idea idea just how many people were in that boat! According to research by mobile ad company MoPub, in the five days following the release of the application, they saw a 29% increase in iOS 6 users, which they attribute to Google’s Maps being available again.

Google has been trying to get in the social game for a while now, but it’s not easy to unseat the behemoth Facebook. According to some research by law firm Morrison & Foerster’s Socially Aware Blog, Google+ now has about 100 million active users per month. Not a small number, to be sure. But here’s the catch: the users there spend a total of 3 minutes on the site each month. In contrast, Facebook’s 1 billion+ users clock in at 6.75 hours monthly. That’s an astounding difference, and one that makes it pretty clear why Facebook is still far and wide the leader of social.

The firm produced an infographic that’s chock full of data about how we spend our time online. For example, Americans have reduced their time watching regular TV from 71.1 hours in 2006, to 59.4 hours in 2011. Conversely, time spent watching TV online has gone up almost fourfold from 6.3hrs to 23.1hrs in the same period. It’s clear that the Internet has entered a coming-of-age period where the gee-whiz this-is-awesome feelgoodery of the early 2,000’s has given place to a more mature and entrenched recognition that online is where an increasing portion of society is choosing to spend their lives. Video may have killed the radio star, but the Internet is going to reshape our society in ways that are still hard to predict, but always exciting to monitor.

Heard any good Chuck Norris jokes lately? No? Well, I have a couple for you. Before I pelt you with jokes, you’re probably already familiar with all the Norris-themed jokes and memes that are all over the Web these days. Never mind the whys and just enjoy the fact that we live in a Norris-dominated world these days. And he’s taking over Google.

Well, no, not really. Rather, a joke site has come up with a pretty creative way of showcasing the might of Chuck Norris. We won’t spoil too much for you, but instead, here’s what we want you to do:

1. Head on over to Google.com.
2. Type ‘Where is Chuck Norris?’ in the search field.
3. Click on the first result you get.
4. Laugh. (We didn’t really need to tell you to do this now, did we?)

Apple’s Maps application is garbage. Haha. We sure like to beat a dead horse, on the Internets, but we do it because some things stay funny even when they’re not. That is, they’re funny until someone makes a left turn off a bridge… But to be perfectly honest, the Maps application from Apple is very pretty and does at least one thing better than Google’s: it is much more data efficient. This means that you’ll use up to 7 times less data on it for the same actions on the other one. From the folks at Onavo:

Our data experts performed an identical series of activities on Google Maps and Apple Maps that included searching for several US cities, addresses and airports and zooming in and out to locate specific locations. On Google Maps, the average data loaded from the cellular network for each step was 1.3MB. Apple Maps came in at 271KB – that’s approximately 80% less data! On some actions, such as zooming in to see a particular intersection, Apple Maps’ efficiency advantage edged close to 7X.

Why the difference? Mostly because the Apple Maps app uses vector graphics that can resize infinitely without having to reload any new data. But if you’re on a limited data plan and need to use this application a lot, we suppose that it’s some kind of silver lining.

OhGizmo! is a frequently updated blog that focuses on covering items that will appeal to a very specific and often very passionate audience: the geek. Aside from the fare of innovative consumer electronic products, the reader can expect to find news about geek culture, absurd inventions, awe inspiring technology, and an ever growing assortment of articles that we like to think fit within our view of what we’re calling the Geek Lifestyle.